Memoir Archive

The Men in My Life: A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan - “In the 1950s, Patricia Bosworth acted with the best, married the worst, and lost those she loved.” That’s the headline of the Los Angeles Times review of Patricia Bosworth’s memoir.

The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship - “The best book about friendship I’ve ever read.” That’s what I wrote, some years ago, about Let's Take the Long Way Home, Gail Caldwell’s memoir of her friendship with

The Orchard - After Adele (Kitty”) Crockett’s father died in 1932, the family gathered in Ipswich, Massachusetts to discuss the fate of their farm. Not an easy conversation --- it was a venerable

The Price of Illusion: A Memoir - It seems strange to describe “The Price of Illusion” as a memoir about addiction because I’ve known Joan Buck for 35 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her

The R. Crumb Handbook - Like any self-respecting survivor of the 1960s, I knew all about R. Crumb. He was the San Francisco "underground" artist who created "Mr. Natural" and "Flakey Foont" and a lot of

The Rules of Inheritance - Last year, when I began to rave about Troubled Water, a friend said he wasn’t likely to watch it. “You have a greater capacity for sadness than I do,” he told

The Scientists: A Family Romance - Guest Butler Elizabeth Benedict is the author of five novels, including the bestseller Almost, and The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers. She’s the editor of the

The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer’s Tale - James Atlas and I were at Harvard at the same time and surely took courses together and sat at the same table in the special library for graduate students and

The Story Of My Life: The Autobiography of Helen Keller - When Charles Dickens toured the United States in 1842, he made a special point of visiting institutions. In Boston, he visited the Perkins School for the Blind, where he met

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music - I want you to stop your life and watch what is easily the best video of the year. The scene is a tribute concert, honoring Taylor Hawkins, who was the

The Tender Bar - George Clooney directed the film of “The Tender Bar.” It was made for pennies: $10 million. It got great reviews. It made no money. I’ve read the book twice, I

The Tricky Part - Every picture tells a story. Look at the picture on the cover of this book. It tells two stories. One is of an open-faced, twelve-year-old boy with a Paul McCartney haircut holding a kayak

The Winter of Our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone) Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell The Tale - Guest Butler Elizabeth Benedict is the author of five novels and editor of the anthology, Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives. She is

Them: A Memoir of Parents - Once upon a time, Alexander Liberman was my role model. He was a tall Russian thoroughbred who wore tan linen suits in summer and grey flannel suits in

Then Again - Close your eyes and picture Diane Keaton. I bet you see her as she was in “Annie Hall.” Man’s clothes. Floppy hat. “La-de-da.” Please return to reality. “Annie Hall” was 1977 --- 34

These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves: A Love/Hate/Love/Hate /Love Letter to a Very Bad Habit - They're out there. Literally. The smokers, that is. In cold and wet and hot and horrible, you see them, huddled under canopies. Are they yearning to be free?

This Close to Happy: A Reckoning with Depression - “Lately I’ve been thinking about the allure of suicide again.” Now there’s a book you don’t want to read. And Daphne Merkin, the author of that book, understands. Clinical depression, she

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness - "Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear" --- Laura Munson’s account of trouble in her marriage --- was the most forwarded, shared, discussed, debated column in the Style section of The New